Category Archives: Buddhist Hells

Sweet Soother of Souls

Posted on March 17, 2017 by Vajragoni

There are many horrors awaiting those who are consigned to the Buddhist Hells, but on occasion Compassion itself is to be found there and hopefully experienced. Eileen Gardiner’s Buddhist Hell: Visions, Tours, and Descriptions of the Infernal Otherworld, covers tales of those who descend into hell in order to comfort those poor and tortured souls who find no rest or comfort from their incessant inflictions. One of the Buddha’s major disciples, Maudgalyāyana or Mulian in Chinese Buddhism, has special powers that empowered him to communicate with the dead; he uses this power to visit his mother in hell in the hopes of saving her: read more

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Avīci Hell

Posted on March 13, 2017 by Vajragoni

Perhaps the best known hell-realm within Buddhism is Avīci Hell. It’s the most ferocious and unrelenting dominion that houses the most grievous perpetrators such as those who commit matricide and patricide, rapists, in particular one Ananda (not to be confused with Gautama’s cousin)—who raped his own cousin, the Theri Uppalavanna, heinous murderers (certainly serial murderers have a special place reserved for them in Avīci) and overt slanderers against the Buddha and the Buddhadharma—most notably Devadatta from our last blog. Even though Devadatta eventually becomes liberated from Avīci, whose time is measured in kalpas (a unit of time that describes how long it takes the universe to destroy and recreate itself), he’s still therein suffering from its fire and brimstone.* read more

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Devadatta—the Buddhist Judas

Posted on March 10, 2017 by Vajragoni

There have been many personages who have been consigned to the Buddhist Hells, but perhaps none more notorious than one of the Buddha’s own disciples—Devadatta, who clearly resembles that of a Buddhist Judas. Devadatta was a cousin and brother-in-law of Gautama Siddhārtha and also the brother of the Buddha’s chief disciple—Ānanda. Devadatta conspired to break ranks with the original Sangha and attempted to form his own community with 500 other monks. In time he enjoyed supernormal powers of the mundane plane (puthujjana-iddhi), and convinced of his own superiority, decided to assassinate Gautama Buddha. Devadatta attempted to kill the Buddha himself by dropping a large boulder upon him from on high, but the Blessed One walked away unharmed. Undeterred, Devadatta set upon him an aggressive elephant named Nālāgiri, but the Blessed One simply covered Nālāgiri with the loving compassion of his own mind, wherewith the mighty creature bowed to the ground and worshipped him. Thereafter, however, the tables soon turned on Devadatta. Kokālika, a main disciple of Devadatta, died of ulcers all over his body and was reborn in the Lotus hell because he spoke ill about the Buddha’s disciples Sāriputta and Moggallāna. As for the fate of Devadatta himself: read more

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Yama and the ill-fated being

Posted on March 7, 2017 by Vajragoni

In some Buddhist traditions there are Ten Kings of Hell, but the most prominent one is known as Yama. It is revealed in the suttas that Yama was himself reborn in hell because of his own former actions; pining for his former state as a human he yearns to be able to hear the Buddhadharma from the lips of the Blessed One and thus be liberated from his suffering: read more

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The Karma Factor

Posted on March 4, 2017 by Vajragoni


            Amazing Art by Daniel Martin Diaz

Being reborn in the hell-realms is based upon the degree of negative-karma to warrant such a rebirth. This karmic-principle is merciless and irrevocable. As the Dhammapada teaches, you are what you think, and what you think leads to actions and in so doing one can reap much bitter fruit if those actions are wrongfully-conceived and administered. This is not just limited to human beings but also to inhabitants of the god-realms as well. Yea, any being, even devas, are responsible for their actions—thus one is not punished or rewarded by celestial agencies but by one’s own karmic-triggers [action].  Although out of the six realms of impermanence, it is best to be reborn as a human, since the human agency can best be transformed through the Holy Dharma in transcending the samsaric-curse and thus stop the karmic-wheel of transmigration, regeneration and rebirth: read more

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Buddhist Hells

Posted on March 1, 2017 by Vajragoni

As is evident from this blog’s title, hell within Buddhism is pluralized as opposed to its singular Christian counterpart, for there are many hells—in some texts, vast panoramic cities of them. The English word hell is derived from a Northern European Goddess named Hel, meaning the one who “covers things up.” In point of fact, it was not until Milton’s majestic poem, Paradise Lost, which depicts Satan (Myself Am Hell) and hell’s “vast pandemonium”, along with Dante’s poem Inferno (from the larger Divine Comedy), that notions of hells fiery sulfuric-nature became imprinted within the Western psyche. Buddhist notions of hell antecede its Western equivalent: read more

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